


How to Unmask Your Neighborhood Vigilante

by igrockspock



Series: Marci Stahl Is Better Than You [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Ethical Debate, F/M, Vigilante Justice, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 00:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4242351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after the fall of Landman & Zack, Marci's life is looking up.  Her boyfriend is good at sex and willing to help with her apartment's dodgy plumbing, and her new job at the ACLU is definitely on the right side of the law.  There's just one problem: she knows Matt is up to somthing, and whatever it is puts Foggy at risk too.  She's determined to find out before Foggy finds himself charged as an accessory to a crime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Unmask Your Neighborhood Vigilante

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt at the Daredevil kink meme: Marci figures out that Matt is Daredevil.

Marci Stahl does not have it all -- unless by _all_ , you mean crushing student debt. She definitely has all of that.

But then, she'd tried to have it all when she worked at Landman & Zack, and she ended up unemployed and grateful not to be in prison. So, you know, maybe it's better to stick with having some.

For example, her boyfriend is the Michelangelo of oral sex, he takes out her trash, and he helps her deal with the dodgy plumbing in her shitty apartment in Queens. Unfortunately, he's also afraid of large insects, so she has to kill the stray roaches in _both_ of their apartments. 

And her new job at the ACLU isn't exactly perfect. On the plus side, she's never going to end up in jail, and Constitutional law offers some surprisingly decent career paths. Federal judge, Solicitor General of the United States -- not that she's plotting a House of Cards style takeover anytime soon, but hey, a girl should know her options. On the downside, no more designer pumps, at least, not if she wants to make her loan payments.

Really, it's a pretty good life, if you don't count the part where her boyfriend's best friend and business partner definitely has an illegal side business. And really, that shouldn't be Marci's problem. Foggy's a grown-up. If he wants to risk indictment, disbarment, and incarceration in the name of bromance, that's his business, right?

Except that when Marci was in over her head at Landman & Zack, he'd given her a way out.

Except that even if she's not ready to say it out loud, her feelings about Foggy start with a capital L and end with an o-v-e.

That means she's only got one option: figure out what the hell Matt is into, and then figure out how to get Foggy out of it. Which is not exactly a risk-free proposition. There's the part where she can get in a lot of trouble for knowing about a crime and not reporting it, and also the part where Foggy might freak out and dump her because he's ridiculously protective of Matt.

But hey, she'd smuggled files out of New York's largest and shadiest law firm, hadn't she? She's pretty damn good at being sneaky. Go Slytherin.

***

Marci's evidence file starts out as a collection of sticky notes in a shoebox under her bed, but she ditches that system pretty fast. For one, she’s way too anal, and post-it notes get this weird fuzz all over the adhesive if you move them too often. Worse, there’s a chance Foggy might grab it while reaching for her box of vibrators. Nothing ruins sex -- or relationships -- faster than “oh hey, you just discovered I suspect your hetero lifemate of running a nefarious criminal enterprise.” The really sad thing is, the evidence that Matt’s up to no good fills up a shoebox pretty fast.

First, there are the physical clues. Marci puts those in one column of her shiny new evidence spreadsheet. The bruises are the most obvious, and then there’s the way he misses work and comes back limping. She’d caught him sleeping a lot too, back when she was working at Nelson & Murdock because no one else would hire her. In law school, Matt had been notorious for pulling Red Bull fueled all nighters; she can’t imagine he’d start his own firm just to sleep at his desk.

Serious illness had seemed like the most logical explanation, once upon a time. After that, she’d thought he might be in some horrible abusive relationship, but he and Foggy had both laughed that one off, along with the suggestion that he was dying of AIDS. Both of those go in the column marked “rejected explanations for weird shit Matt does.” She color codes that one red and adds Foggy’s preferred explanation, that Matt is blind and clumsy. Matt’s been blind for as long as Marci’s known him, but he’d never been clumsy before. It doesn’t make sense for him to suddenly start falling down the stairs while taking out the garbage.

The scariest thing is what Matt had actually _said_ , which gets a separate column all its own. On her last day at Nelson & Murdock, Marci had said, “whatever you’re doing, don’t take Foggy down with you.” Well, actually, she’d said, “I’ll destroy you if you take Foggy down with you.” Matt hadn’t said _what the fuck_ or _maybe you should get that paranoid schizophrenia checked out_. No, he’d said, “if that happens, I hope you do destroy me.” Marci didn’t need a law degree to know what kind of admission that was.

But what exactly was he admitting _to_? She starts another column for possible explanations.

Fight Club is real. Matt violated the first rule of Fight Club. Now Foggy is in danger.  
Matt is a pot baron. Foggy is in legal danger because he knows about Matt’s pot farm, and Matt gets in fights a lot because..the marijuana trade is less mellow than it might appear?  
Matt is an underworld kingpin. A shitty kingpin who is frequently beaten by minions who want to usurp control. Foggy is in danger because he knows about all the white powder Matt moves, or because movies are real and rival kingpins sometimes dismember each other’s friends.  
Matt is so depressed he views himself as a threat to his friends’ existence and thinks he might need to be destroyed.  
Matt is an enormous troll who enjoys fucking with Marci because he’s never forgiven her for that one time she broke his best friend’s heart.

The thing is, absolutely none of those explanations sound reasonable now that they're written out on paper -- except maybe the last two, and Marci can't shake the feeling that she's dealing with more than Matt's delusions. 

What she needs is more data, and there's only one way to get it: go back to work for Nelson & Murdock.

***

The opportunity appears a week later, although Marci's slow to recognize it. She meets Foggy for a late dinner on Tuesday night, and she lets him pick the place, which is always a dangerous proposition. This one is in a gritty corner of Hell's Kitchen. Obviously. Because Hell's Kitchen is _made_ of gritty corners. The cramped booths are made from yellow formica, and there's a grizzled-looking guy named Vinnie behind the counter who greets Foggy like a long-lost brother -- which probably just means Foggy's been getting meatball subs here since high school, but given the number of brothers Foggy has, an actual biological relationship is not an impossibility.

"This is so not your kind of place," Foggy says, watching her try -- and fail -- to pick up her sandwich without getting marinara sauce all over her fingers. Of course, he looks more amused than chagrinned. "Here, I can make it better," he says. "I got an app for it and everything."

Marci glares at him over the top of her meatball sub while he pulls his iPhone out of his pocket. He still has a 4S, naturally. _But Marci, I don't_ want _the new iOS_. When he puts it down on the table, there's an image of a candle flickering on the screen.

"Better?" he asks, grinning hopefully.

Marci rolls her eyes. The booth is so tiny their knees are mashed together under the table, and he keeps leaning over to wipe sauce off the corner of her mouth -- which was maybe the whole point of coming here, and Marci has to admit it's not awful. Well, she has to admit that to herself, not to Foggy. No way is she giving up the chance to extort an actual, decent Italian dinner later.

"I was going to take you somewhere else," he says. "I just didn't envision that I'd have to go back to the office in an hour."

"Seriously?" Marci asks. She licks a drop of marinara sauce off her wrist, which is undignified, but she had to stop it from getting her shirt _somehow_.

"Could you do that again?" Foggy asks. "I'd like to get it on video. It was cute and weirdly sexy."

"And turn out our candle? How disappointing," Marci says, reaching for another napkin. "And seriously, why are you going back to work? This is the third night in a row."

"Yeah, remember that small business seminar you recommended? Matt and I went, and it turns out that you're not supposed to say no to any job, no matter how small. That way, people remember you when they have something big. Logical, right? Except for the part where we're swamped with bankruptcies and divorces and Josie's problem with the Health Department. And yet, that class action suit against the Manhattan District Court -- the one that's the entire foundation of our practice -- is not going away. Apparently we have to work on that one all the time."

"You know that drinks with eels in them violate, like, _all_ health codes, right, Foggy?" Marci asks.

"Is Josie's Health Department issue really the most salient part of this conversation?" Foggy asks.

"To be clear, eel drinks are illegal because they can kill you," Marci says. "And if you really need help, I can come in a few evenings."

Foggy narrows his eyes. "Out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Ouch," Marci says. She has a heart, and it's...not awful. Maybe even fifty percent good.

"Not backing down on this one. Sleeping with me does not make a person altruistic. If it did, you'd be Mother Teresa by now," Foggy says, wiping his mouth. How is his sandwich already gone?

"It would be really ironic if excessive sex could turn me into a nun." She frowns. "Also tragic."

Foggy gives her an exasperated glare, and Marci sighs.

"Okay, fine, if you must know, I could use the extra cash. I tripped on a subway grate and snapped the heel off one of my Manolos."

Foggy grins. "That's more like it. And that's a total Carrie Bradshaw moment, by the way."

"Shut up. I am obviously Samantha," Marci says. She wads up her fifth napkin of the night and tosses it on the table. She and this sandwich are officially done. She's not giving it any more chances to ruin her shirt. "Come on. Let's go back to work."

"Only you would say that like it's a treat," Foggy says, reaching for his blazer. He wraps up her sandwich. "And no way are we leaving this on the table."

***

"Marci!" Karen exclaims when they walk through the door. "It's good to see you here!"

She's beaming in a way that would make Marci feel all warm and wanted, if she ever admitted to having feelings like that, which she totally doesn't.

"Yeah, she's helping us out with a few things till we get the class action suit under control," Foggy says.

"That's sweet," Karen says. She's already shuffling through papers on her desk, probably looking for the files that Marci needs.

"Is sweet what you call it when you help someone in exchange for money?" Marci asks.

Foggy frowns. "Actually, I think it's mercenary, but we take all the help we can get around here." He hands her the stack of files from Karen's desk. "If you could just, you know, make these things make sense again..."

"We had an intern for a day," Karen says. "It didn't work out."

"Yeah, you know those weird law schools in Jamaica for Americans who can't get into law school in the United States? Don't hire interns from there," Foggy says. He opens the door to his office, and Marci sees her old desk still in the corner, looking sad and empty without all her things.

"It's okay to admit you missed us," Karen calls as Marci slides back into her old seat. "We missed you too."

Marci peers through the open doorway. She can see Karen sitting in the circle of yellow lamplight around her desk. It's a familiar sight, and yeah, maybe she'd missed this place a little.

Foggy shoots her a knowing look before he stage whispers to Karen, "Be careful. If you talk about feelings, you'll frighten her away."

On the other side of Karen's desk, Matt's office is dark and empty.

***

Matt's back in the office on Wednesday night. A bruise is blooming along the edge of his jaw, and Marci thinks she sees the edge of a black eye around the rim of his glasses. They're bigger and rounder than the ones he wore in law school, and Marci wonders if it's to hide the bruises better. Or maybe she's just being paranoid.

She hadn't expected him to say much to her -- he'd been understandably cool since she'd threatened to destroy him -- but he shows up at her desk with a package of Pilot pens in his hand.

"It's nice to have you back here, Marci," he says.

"It's really sweet of you to lie about that, Matt," she answers with an exaggerated grin.

Matt turns toward Foggy. "For the record, your girlfriend is impossible to be friends with."

Foggy shrugs. "It's one of her many charms," he says, standing up. "I'm going to get some food from the bodega downstairs. You want anything?"

Matt waits for Foggy to leave before he turns back toward Marci's desk. "Why are you really here?" he asks, his affable smile gone.

"I pay my student debt the same way everyone else does: one sliver of my soul at a time," she says. 

"I know you're lying," Matt says mildly.

Marci cranes her neck so she can see out the office door. Foggy's definitely gone. 

"Okay, boyfriend gone, pretense gone," she says. "You are doing something -- pardon my tragically vague language here -- bad. Maybe Foggy knows about it. Maybe he doesn't. But you and I both know the law doesn't always care about the truth. No jury's going to believe he doesn't know what you're doing, so I'm going to make sure it doesn't get to that point. Here's my offer: tell me now, because you know I'll find out."

Matt's body is rigid. His lips part like he's about to say something, and then he closes his mouth again. Marci watches his Adam's apple bob up and down.

"Marci, this isn't what you think," he says, but the office door swings open before he can get any further.

"Forgot my wallet," Foggy says, walking toward his desk. He looks back and forth from Marci to Matt. "I can trust you two to play nicely together, right?"

"Define nice," Marci says, and Foggy grimaces.

"Do I have to give you two the speech _again?_ I thought maybe you remembered it from law school? You know, the one about how you're both really important to me and it might be nice if you didn't try to verbally eviscerate each other _every_ day?" Foggy asks.

"Every other day would be fine?" Marci asks hopefully. "Twenty-four hours off would really give me time to hone my ammunition."

"What happened to the two of you?" Foggy asks. "A month ago, you were going out for ice cream, and now you're like...well, I can't think of a metaphor. You're like two people who can't get along."

"It's a legal disagreement, Foggy," Matt says. "That's all."

Foggy looks back and forth between them again. "You two _are_ really important to me. You know that, right?"

Fuck. How is this not supposed to make her feel guilty? The expression on Foggy's face would make Satan himself feel bad. Marci even thinks Matt is turning red. 

"I'm going to get my Red Bull and questionable leftovers from the deli salad bar," Foggy says. "And when I come back, you two kids better be nice to each other again."

Matt gives him a short, sharp nod.

"Try not to get E. coli," Marci says.

"Well, that was embarrassing," Matt says when Foggy's gone. 

"Yeah," Marci says, and Matt's lips curl up into a familiar ghost of a smile. 

For a second, it's like they're...well, whatever they were before Marci turned down the chance to join Nelson, Murdock, & Stahl. Not friends, exactly, but two people who cared about the same person and respected each other's differences. And it sucks to lose that. Marci's circle isn't exactly wide, so she tries to hang onto people. But then, she'd learned the hard way what happened when you turned a blind eye to lawyers who weren't following the law. You got to watch your firm's senior partners getting arrested in the parking garage. If she does that here, it will be Foggy she watches getting arrested, and probably Karen too.

"I mean it, Matt," she says. "I will destroy you."

***

Marci's Nelson & Murdock nostalgia lasts three days, which is how long it takes to remember that half her job involves wrangling office equipment that's outdated and possibly possessed. The copy machine halts with a terrific ripping noise and the faint smell of burning toner. Marci lets loose string of obscenities, and Karen buries her face in her hands.

"Did it jam again?" she asks. "That's the fourth time today."

She joins Marci in front of the machine, where they both stare forlornly at the display.

"Open tray C?" Karen mutters. "Where the fuck is the C tray?"

"Matt and Foggy are seriously lucky you still work here," Marci says.

"I know, right?" Karen murmurs absently. She's on her knees in front of the copier, running her fingers over it in search of a hidden button.

"No, seriously," Marci says. "Don't pretend you like getting your insurance from Healthcare.gov. You are worth so much more than that."

Is stealing your boyfriend's legal secretary a dumpable offense? Marci wonders. The ACLU had told her she could hire an assistant...

"It's not really about the money, Marci. Matt and Foggy are my friends, my family, my possibly unhealthy codependent relationship with my job..." Karen shrugs. "Anyway, it's not like they have the money for a pay raise."

Karen finally finds the right button, and the tray shoots out with a loud pop. The inside is filled with tattered bits of paper snarled between the gears. Karen tugs at one of the larger ones experimentally. A little piece of it comes off in her hand.

" _Fuck_ ," she says. "Maybe we could get it out with chopsticks? I think I have some in my bottom drawer. You know, the scary one that's filled with all the junk that doesn't belong anywhere else."

Marci bends over to look. She's still trying to process _it's not about the money_. She's pretty sure that she never has -- and never will -- utter a sentence like that in her life.

"If they don't have the money, then make them give you training. You should be their paralegal," Marci says. She thinks she sees a pair of chopsticks wedged in the back of the drawer, behind a big navy folder and a brick of post-it notes.

"Really?" Karen asks, looking surprised.

Marci halts her search to look back at Karen. "Really," she says. "Foggy and Matt can't run this place without you. Foggy thinks all technology speaks some alien language, and he wouldn't know a billing spreadsheet if it bit him in the ass. And Matt's kind of a prick sometimes, which is not a terrible quality in a lawyer, unless he's trying to recruit new clients. Not to mention he can't spell worth shit."

Karen huffs. "Tell me about it." She gestures toward her computer screen. "I've been editing his brief for the last hour. He told me spell check doesn't work with his screen reader, but I googled it, and that is a lie."

Marci rolls her eyes. She'd worked with Matt on a few projects in law school, and all of them had culminated with her staying up till two fixing spelling mistakes. Braille is apparently full of weird contractions that don't translate well into written English, and Matt didn't always remember to fix them.

She yanks out folder out of Karen's drawer and it flops open in her lap. It's the file Foggy had shown her ages ago, the one about Fisk that he'd gotten from the man in the mask. The first few sentences are riddled with spelling mistakes, but not where you'd expect them to be. All the legal terms are spelled perfectly, but simple words like prepositions are off. She'd noticed that when she read the file the first time too -- it was like reading an indictment typed by a drunken third grader.

Or a blind attorney. 

Karen waves a hand in front of her face. "Hello? Marci? You still there?"

Marci shakes her head. "Sorry. I just wasn't expecting to see the Fisk file."

She snaps the folder shut and grabs the chopsticks out of the back of the drawer.

"This looks like it might take awhile," she says, patting the copy machine. "I'm going to get us a cookie from the deli downstairs. We deserve it."

She slides the folder back in the drawer and stands up, smoothing her skirt. She isn't really thinking about this, right? Matt is _blind._ Matt is a sanctimonious prick. He doesn't go around beating people up in the middle of the night. Right?

Her heart won't stop hammering even when she's out of the office and halfway down the street. It fits. _Everything_ fits -- the cuts, the bruises, the exhaustion, maybe even the part about being a sanctimonious prick. Matt wouldn't sell drugs or run a crime syndicate, but if he thought he was _helping_ people... 

And who is she to say that blind people can't fight crime? It's not like blindness had held Matt back from anything else he wanted to do. Obviously the guy knows how to fight; if he couldn't, he'd probably be dead in a dumpster or comatose in a hospital by now, not limping into work with minor facial bruising.

She leans against a shelf in the deli and forces herself to take a few deep breaths. There has to be a rational way to prove this, right? She'll go home and make a list of all the Daredevil sightings around the city, and then she'll check the dates against the days he didn't bill any hours.

And then she'll see that Matt was in the office after every Daredevil sighting, and she can go back to her nice, normal life. That's what's going to happen, she tells herself as she pays for two enormous black and white cookies. Everything is fine. She just had a temporary bout of insanity and thought her boyfriend's best friend was a masked vigilante.

***

Marci comes into the office at five the next morning, when no one else is there. Stomach churning, sits down at Karen's desk and logs into Nelson & Murdock's ancient and outdated billing program.

 _Daredevil falls out window in epic battle with notorious drug lord_. Matt bills zero hours for two days.

 _Lucky fan lands three separate Daredevil sightings in one night._ Matt doesn't bill any hours until noon.

 _Daredevil rescues girl from burning restaurant_. No hours billed by Matt or Foggy, and Marci remembers that day. An old gas line had exploded at everyone's favorite diner; it had been all over the papers the next day. Matt had been there. Foggy had taken him to the ER for smoke inhalation.

But that could be a coincidence, right? If Matt were her client, she wouldn't even let the police claim probable cause. She's just going to look at the Fisk file one more time and see that the spelling mistakes aren't the same. It was written by a badly educated vigilante, not a blind attorney.

Her hands are shaking when she pulls the folder out of the bottom drawer. She skims through the first page, jotting down the spelling mistakes as she goes: _although, because, between, immediate, necessary, through..._ Exactly the same errors as Matt's brief, which is still open on Karen's computer.

But anyone can make weird spelling errors, right? Maybe Matt's dyslexic. She pulls out her phone to google for Braille contractions. Matt had told her about them once, when he was defending his terrible proofreading, but she hadn't really listened. They're not like what she expected. They're not just used to combine two words; they're a way to condense common words into just a few Braille dots. Most of them are prepositions, just like the misspelled words in the Fisk file. The one that Foggy had said was written by the masked man.

Okay. Deep breath. She's not going to panic. She's definitely not going to throw up. She's just going to call out of work, go home, and plan a nice, rational conversation with Foggy.

Except the office door is opening, and she doesn't have time to move or hide what she was doing.

 _Let it be Karen,_ she thinks. _Let it be Karen and I'll tell her and we'll decide together what to do_.

But it's not Karen. It's Foggy.

***

Foggy flips on the lights and jumps when he sees her at Karen's desk.

"You came in early, Foggy Bear," Marci says. She's aiming for breezy, but instead she just sounds fake.

Foggy blinks. "Yeah, I own the firm. I do that sometimes." He looks at the file lying open on the desk and narrows his eyes. "What are you doing here? And why are you at Karen's desk?"

"Just getting some work done," Marci says, trying to keep her tone breezy. She's failing hard. "I don't think your suspicious attitude is healthy for our relationship."

"Maybe, but you know what's less healthy for our relationship? When you come in my office at six in the morning, and you won't tell me why."

Marci flips the file shut and lets out a long breath. "I know this looks really bad, but if you could just trust me for another eight hours, we can go out to dinner and I'll explain everything."

"Counter offer," Foggy says, snatching the file off the desk. "You tell me now and maybe I don't call the police."

"The police? Jesus Christ, Foggy. That escalated quickly." Marci reaches for the mouse to shut down the billing program, but Foggy catches her wrist.

"You gotta admit, you have a little history where stealing files is concerned," he says.

"Are you seriously using that against me?" she asks. "I did that because I _trusted_ you, and I cared about the law. And if I didn't say it before, I'm really grateful you stopped me from making a huge mistake. Now I'm trying to return the favor."

Foggy cranes his neck to peer at the computer screen. "By going through Matt's briefs and our billing records?"

"By figuring out what Matt is up to before he drags you down with him," Marci says.

Foggy's whole body goes tense and he clenches his jaw.

"I'm not an idiot, Foggy," Marci says. "He misses work all the time, he's bruised, and he actually told me he was up to something. And don't pretend you don't know. You're working twice as hard to cover the hours he misses. There are nights when you're glued to your phone, waiting for him to tell you when he gets home -- which is not part of a healthy adult friendship, by the way -- and you're drinking twice as much as you used to. We need to talk about this."

Foggy grips the folder so tightly that his knuckles are white. "I don't know what you think you found, Marci, but there is absolutely nothing to talk about."

"Then I have a news flash for you, Foggy Bear. Your best friend thinks he's a superhero, but actually he's a vigilante and he's going to get you indicted as an accessory to all kinds of violent crimes."

"What the fuck, Marci? Look, I get that you've always had a problem with Matt, but he's _blind_. Whoever is running around Hell's Kitchen fighting crime isn't Matt," Foggy says. He looks like he's trying really hard to be in lawyer mode, but his voice wavers anyway.

Luckily, lawyer mode is Marci's favorite defense mechanism, so she can turn it on with the flick of a mental switch.

"Okay, one question," she says. "The man in the mask gave you that file in your hand, right?"

Foggy nods tersely.

"And that man is the same as the one the newspaper calls Daredevil, right?"

"Yeah," Foggy says, then he shakes his head. "I mean, I assume. It's what the paper says."

"Nice catch, Foggy Bear. That would really hold up on the witness stand," Marci says. "Here's what I know. The Fisk file was written by a blind person. People who are accustomed to Braille contractions make very particular spelling mistakes. Those mistakes appear in the Fisk file, and also in the brief Karen was correcting yesterday. What's more, there are holes in Matt's billing records the day after every reported Daredevil sighting. Those are some pretty big coincidences."

Foggy shakes his head. "Do you hear yourself, Marci? That is barely even a circumstantial case. I get that you don't like Matt. Believe me, it's pretty much unmissable. But at least he's made an effort. You, though, you just can't get that I love you both. Everything has to be for you."

Marci's stomach clenches. "Did you just say you love me?"

Foggy won't look at her. "You know, I really thought I did, and then I find you in my office, investigating my best friend behind my back." He shakes his head. "You know what? I need to get out of here. Do me a favor and don't call the cops with your made-up accusations, and I'd appreciate it if you weren't here when I came back."

Marci says. "Foggy, you can't storm out of your own office. Let's talk about --"

But he slams the door before she can finish.

***

Marci's surprised that she can even make it through her workday, but she does. In fact, she's so savage in her deposition that the NYPD rep signs a brutality settlement without including the standard media non-disclosure clause. Her boss reads the papers three times before he believes her, and then he offers to take her out for a drink.

And Marci should say yes. She really should. And she should probably fuck someone too, since she's about ninety-nine percent sure her boyfriend managed to confess his love and brutally dump her in a single ten minute conversation. Instead she says she needs to get some sleep and springs for an Uber to drive all the way back to Queens.

She kicks off her heels by the door and collapses on the couch with an extra large gin and tonic. Maybe she _was_ wrong. Spelling errors and sick days don't make an arrest warrant, and yeah, she kind of did have a problem with Matt. It didn't help that he never thought she was good enough for Foggy, or that they spent law school clawing at each other for a rank in the top five. But the truth was, it was hard to know her boyfriend was so devoted to his best friend. Foggy had a million brothers and sisters and cousins, supportive parents, and a best friend he shared everything with. Marci had a judgmental father who solved problems with money, a mother who wouldn't take her lithium, and a few friends she kept at arm's length -- and that was her own fault, but she never had figured out how to trust people. So yeah, she probably needed Foggy more than he needed her, and he rushed off every time Matt was depressed or lonely or making terrible life decisions. When you looked at it really objectively -- and Marci forces herself to look at _everything_ objectively -- she was always going to come in second place to Matt, and that kind of sucked.

Had that made her so delusional she thought Matt was up to something? Maybe, Marci thinks while she pours herself another gin and tonic. But probably not _completely_ delusional. Matt probably _isn't_ Daredevil, but he _is_ doing something, and Foggy knows about it. Maybe while she was trying to prove what Matt was up to, she'd accidentally proven something else: she needs someone who's not completely insane about his best friend.

Marci doesn't remember going to sleep, but she wakes up on the couch in a rumpled suit with a tissue wadded in her hand. Her face feels puffy and her throat is sore, and ugh, this is why she doesn't _do_ relationships. 

All the lights in her apartment are still on, but it's dark outside and the clock on the stove says it's almost midnight. She flicks off the light switches one by one and changes into her pajamas. Maybe she got dumped, but she's still got pride, and no way is she spending the night on the couch in a suit with an empty martini glass by her hand.

She's brushing her teeth when she sees the shadow on her fire escape.

 _Just a cat, just a cat_ , she chants to herself. She forces herself to bend over the sink and spit and rinse. Yes, she is a woman who lives alone in New York City. No, her boyfriend is not sleeping here tonight. That doesn't mean every random shadow is a rapist or a serial killer lingering in the dark. She's going to stand up and look one more time and --

Oh god. That is so not a cat. 

And she'd left the window open.

There is a man standing on her fire escape and he was watching her in the bathroom. _Oh god._

 _Think_.

Marci steps out of the bathroom and grabs the first weapon-y thing she can find, which is the cast iron skillet Foggy had bought at some flea market because he likes things that are weird. She takes a deep breath. She can do this. The skillet is heavy, but she goes to Body Pump every Sunday, and she can smash this asshole's head. But maybe he'll go away. Maybe he can see that she sees him, so he's just going to turn around and go away.

Or not, because he's climbing into her window now. She should probably run toward him and hit him while he's off-balance, but instead she stumbles backwards into the wall. This is really happening. _A man is climbing into her apartment_. And he’s wearing -- god, what is that? Some kind of fetish suit? Her hands are shaking and the skillet is heavy and she keeps wanting to laugh, because really how much worse can this get? It's not enough for a creep to crawl into her window, it has to be a creep in S &M gear.

"Stop right there," she says, which is stupid, because what kind of serial killer rapist person takes orders from his victim?

Apparently this guy does. He stands up just inside her window and slowly raises his hands over his head.

"Could you - could you put that down?" he asks, inclining his head toward the skillet.

"Absolutely not," Marci says. She's holding the skillet like a baseball bat, even though it makes her arms ache. There's something familiar about the way the guy speaks, something about the way he repeats words, but she shoves the thought away. She needs to figure out a way to get to her phone right fucking now.

"Marci, if you could just - just listen," the guy says.

Marci's stomach lurches. He knows her name. This is not an accident. She is not in the wrong place at the wrong time. This man has been watching her. He's been _planning_ for this. He probably saw Foggy leave, and he knows that her A/C is busted so she leaves the window open -- and oh god, she's going to be a true crime article in the New York Daily News tomorrow, and everyone in the comments section is going to say this is her fault because single women in this city should know better than to open windows.

"Marci, please, I'm --"

"Shut up," Marci snaps. "If you say one more word, I’m going to scream.”

Her purse is on the sofa, maybe ten feet away. She starts inching toward it, keeping her eyes fixed on the man in the corner. He's leaning against the wall in a weird way, like maybe he's hurt, which is good, right? She can take him.

She reaches her purse and drops the skillet on the floor with a clatter that will hopefully wake her neighbors. Her phone is on top, and she lunges for it but suddenly the guy is in front of her, so fast she didn't even see him move.

"I can't let you do that, Marci," he says, and then her phone is flying across the room, but it's okay because there's pepper spray on her keychain and her finger’s on the trigger.

"Please don't do that," the guy is saying, and he's backing away from her like he's actually _afraid_. “Marci, Marci, listen it’s --”

She doesn’t let him finish. When the spray hits his face, he crumples into a heap and vomits all over her living room floor. Marci's gagging too, and fuck, maybe she should have thought that through because pepper spray and enclosed spaces _really_ don't mix. But whatever happened, the guy is worse off than she is. He's heaving and gasping on the floor like a fish that's been yanked out of the water, and all she has to do now is turn and run out of the apartment.

She must have underestimated the guy's strength because as soon as she takes a step back, his hand closes around her ankle. She freezes for a second, remembering every horror movie she’s ever seen, and then she kicks him as hard as she can.

" _Help_ ," he rasps, flinching away, and when he pulls off the mask, Marci can see that it's Matt.

***

According to the internet, milk is the best antidote for pepper spray, so Marci pours a gallon of it on Matt’s head. He coughs and rolls away from it, but she pokes him with her toe.

“Sit still, asshole,” she says. “This is the best treatment Dr. Google has to offer.”

Matt coughs some more -- Marci figures some of the milk probably went in his nose -- and licks his lips tentatively.

“This milk expired yesterday,” he says. His voice is raspy and his skin looks pale.

“Yeah, the good stuff is for the lawful resident of this apartment,” Marci says, blinking. Her eyes are still watering, but they don’t sting as badly as they did. “People who break and enter don’t get to complain about the quality of the first aid treatment.”

“Not breaking and entering,” Matt says. “Unlawful entry. The window was open.”

“Everyone loves a smart ass,” Marci says, flopping down on the couch and averting her eyes from Matt. He’s still kind of gagging -- either from the pepper spray or because he’s too delicate for slightly old milk -- and she’s _so_ not watching if he’s going to barf on the floor again.

“Did you really not know it was me?” he asks. “Foggy said you figured it out.”

Marci snorts. “I’m just going to give you a tip here, Matt: when you climb through a woman’s window in the middle of the night, she kind of assumes that you plan to kill her horribly. She doesn’t stop to think, ‘oh, which of my acquaintances could this be?’”

“I thought you would see the suit.”

“In the _dark_? No, dumbass. And besides, I was a little preoccupied by my impending death.”

“It was dark,” Matt says slowly. “I forget that matters to other people. You put up a good fight, by the way.”

“No. I _won_ the fight,” Marci says. “Which one of us is lying on the ground?”

“Only because I didn’t want to hurt you,” Matt says.

Marci rolls her eyes, even though Matt can’t see it. It’s really kind of unfair how the blind are immune all the best gestures of derision. She hazards a glance in his direction, just in case he’s having a seizure or something. His eyes look like they’re swelling shut, and his skin is covered with red blotches in between the drops of milk.

“Just for the record, I hate you,” she says. “I’m only asking this because it would be super inconvenient if you died in a pool of vomit on my living room floor, but are you okay? You looked kind of hurt earlier.”

“There was a guy with, ah, maybe it was a mace? It didn’t cut through the suit, but I think it broke some ribs,” he says, feeling gingerly along his side. “And my skin is on fire, so there’s that.”

Matt looks weirdly calm for a guy who must be in horrible pain. Marci files that away for her list of psychological symptoms to google later. The frustrating thing is how impossible it is _not_ to feel worried about someone who’s lying on her floor with broken bones and a possible allergic reaction to pepper spray.

“Google says dish soap will take off the oil from the pepper spray,” she says. “If you get up, I’ll help you get to the shower. If you can’t get up, I’m calling an ambulance.”

That’s decently responsible, right? 

Matt sits up with a sound somewhere in between a groan and a whine, and Marci grabs his outstretched hand. What exactly is the etiquette here? Marci wonders. She’s never seen Matt in an unfamiliar place without a cane, but somehow she doubts there’s one sitting on her fire escape. Does a blind guy who can leap over rooftops need help finding her shower? 

“Do you need help?” she asks finally.

“I think I do,” Matt says. He’s leaning against her pretty hard. “I can’t smell anything right now. It’s kind of novel, but disorienting.”

 _Why does that matter?_ Marci almost asks, but she bites back the question. She refuses to find any part of this interesting; she needs to stay focused on the insane amount of legal trouble they’re all about to get in.

“Normally I could smell the bathroom,” Matt volunteers. “There would be soap and...other things.”

“Ew,” Marci says, feeling grateful that she’d cleaned the bathroom last weekend. Sure, she kept her apartment _looking_ nice, but she’d never considered how someone who relied on other senses might perceive it.

“Well, here’s the bathroom,” Marci says, depositing Matt in the middle of the rug. She turns on the water for him because she’s feeling charitable, but the rest he’s going to have to figure out for himself. Sponge bathing blind vigilantes is _way_ outside the scope of her kindness, even on a good day -- and the day her boyfriend’s best friend breaks into her apartment dressed like a superhero is _not_ a good day.

When she hears Matt climb into the shower and pull the curtain shut, she comes back with a couple bottles of Dawn. 

“You have a lot of dish soap,” Matt says from behind the shower curtain.

“Yeah, well, Costco sales are the song of my people,” Marci says. “The internet says you’ll need to wash eight to ten times to get all the residue off, so have fun.”

She looks around the bathroom, wondering if Matt will be able to find the towels on his own. Then she remembers she doesn’t give a shit. Mostly anyway. If she doesn’t give Matt something to wear, he’s going to be wandering around her apartment naked, and while that might be a nice view, it would probably get awkward pretty quickly.

“I’m throwing some of Foggy’s clothes on the floor by the tub,” she says. “See you later.”

Marci should probably call the police and go to bed, but instead she ends up fetching more things for Matt. It’s sort of like that book her nanny used to read her, _If You Give a Mouse a Cookie_. Except this one would be called _If You Pepper Spray a Really Annoying Ninja_. Apparently Matt’s senses are enhanced somehow, so it hurts a lot to bathe in dish soap because it dries out his skin. And of course, he couldn’t _drink_ the dish soap, so he ends up gargling her half-and-half to wash pepper spray residue out of his throat. Her coffee’s going to suck tomorrow morning. At least Matt has the decency to look embarrassed shuffling around her apartment in Foggy’s too-large clothes with a tub of her favorite moisturizer under his arm. Or maybe he’s not embarrassed. Maybe his skin is really just that red and irritated, which serves him right for sneaking into her apartment in the middle of the night.

“Sit down,” Marci snaps. She smacks the couch extra hard, just in case he needs the sound to find her. “You and I need to talk.”

“You probably want to know why I’m here,” Matt says, balancing on the edge of one of the cushions.

Marci rolls her eyes. “You came here to implicate me, right? Foggy told you that I knew, and you figured the best way to protect yourself was to make sure I couldn’t rat you out without getting my own shiny aiding and abetting charge.”

Matt clears his throat. “I’m actually not that Machiavellian, Marci. The truth is, I haven’t thought this through enough to _be_ Machiavellian about it.”

“Not actually a relief, Matt,” Marci says. “I would like to think that if you’re implicating everyone you love in a felony, you know what you’re doing.”

"You're not implicated, Marci," Matt says. "We can say that I threatened you, if it comes to that."

"You think I'm just worried about me?" Marci asks. She can't keep the hysterical edge out of her voice, not when she's picturing Foggy indicted, Foggy in jail, Foggy disbarred. "And what do you mean, _we can say_? You know, that's all we talked about on Fisk's legal team. What we could _say_ to make all the bad legal stuff go away. It was morally bankrupt, and it almost destroyed me."

Matt's silent. Marci's not looking at him, but she hears him swallow hard. She tries to focus on slowing her breathing, but a new horrible thought is circling her brain. 

"Are you trying to kill yourself, Matt?" 

Matt makes a noise that's somewhere between a snort and a bitter laugh. "Not as much as I was before."

Marci can't help it. She reaches out and grabs his wrist. It feels delicate and more slender than it should be; her fingers encircle it easily, and suddenly she sees why Foggy’s always worrying if Matt eats enough.

"Don't try to kill yourself at all, okay?" she says. Her voice is thicker than it should be. "People care about you."

Matt tugs his wrist away gently and collapses back against the cushions of the couch. Marci follows suit. God, she could use a drink. Fuck a martini. Vodka straight from the bottle would be just fine.

“I was hoping you just wanted to know how a blind guy could leap over rooftops,” he says, a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth.

"I’m sure you have a system,” Marci says. She’s never understood why people wasted so much of their time pondering how Matt does things. It never interested her, though to be fair, she spends very little time thinking about other people. She pinches the bridge of her nose, like that’s going to magically banish the headache that’s building behind her eyes. “You understand that vigilante justice is illegal, right?”

“I don’t do the justice part anymore,” Matt says, sounding tired. “I just...find who’s responsible for certain things. It’s what I was doing tonight, actually. I stowed away on a truck of trafficking victims.”

“And it took you to Queens, whereupon you disembarked and climbed into my window.”

Matt smiles faintly. “I actually might have fallen off the roof, whereupon I was discovered by the man with the mace. He objected to my presence.”

Marci doesn’t even know where to _start_ with that one. Who the fuck carries a mace? Or maybe that’s a stupid question; maybe she should really be asking who the fuck sells other people. Or maybe it’s all Matt’s attempt to drag her into his weird world and make her forget all the logical, rational points she wants to make.

“Okay, so let’s say you didn’t fall off the truck. If you’re really not some kind of vigilante, what were you planning to do to the driver and his, um, goons?” God, had she really just used the word _goon_ in a sentence? Her life contains traffickers and vigilantes and goons with medieval weaponry now?

A smile flickers at the corner of Matt’s mouth. “I would have...encouraged them to turn themselves in and testify against whoever hired them.”

“Uh-huh. And I’m sure they would have agreed to that after a polite discussion with the nice man in the mask.”

The smile flickers again. “Some people require more encouragement than others.”

Marci feels sick. Matt thinks this is is funny. “You know that when the police ‘encourage’ people to confess, we call that brutality? Then we sue them. Actually, _I_ specifically sue them. It’s a thing I do for the ACLU. Beating people until jail seems like a better alternative is illegal, and also immoral.”

“These aren’t teenagers with switchblades, Marci. They’re traffickers and drug runners and Mafia thugs who spend their lives preying on the weak.”

“And you’re the right person to decide what they deserve?” Marci asks. Well, actually, she’s kind of yelling, but who’s counting?

“It doesn’t matter if I’m the right person or not. I’m the only one doing it,” Matt says, clenching his jaw. He swallows and takes a long breath. “You really don’t want to know why I’m here?”

Marci purses her lips. “Because you’re too damned dysfunctional to pick up a phone and say _hey Marci, I fell off a truck, come get me_? Because you can’t walk all the way back to Manhattan with broken ribs, and there’s not a pocket in your ridiculous fetish suit for a MetroCard?”

“I can’t deny either of those things,” Matt says, smiling faintly. “You and I haven’t always gotten along, but I do respect your judgment. _Foggy_ respects your judgment.”

“Not Machiavellian, my ass,” Marci snaps. “Let’s not pretend you’d stop doing this if I told you it was a bad idea -- and for the record, it’s the most terrible idea I’ve ever heard. But I suppose it’s good you uncovered some crime tonight, so now we’re going to call the cops like two normal human beings.”

Matt's jaw clenches and unclenches. "You only think that works because of where you grew up."

"Low blow, Matt." Yeah, she grew up on the Upper East Side. Didn't mean her life was easy.

"You know it's true, Marci," Matt says. His voice wavers a little bit with the intensity of his words. It's actually kind of impressive. "If you disappeared from your bed at night, the police would have shut down the city looking for you. When my father died, do you know how hard the police looked for the killer? He was just another poor bastard who didn't know better than to get involved with mob."

"That wasn't right either, Matt, but --"

"But nothing. I used to think that if I got Fisk, everything would be better. It’s not. Nobody has to pay the police to look the other way when the police don’t care anyway. _Thousands_ of people have disappeared in this city in the last year. Most of them are women, people of color, people who don’t speak English. Nobody is looking for them. Except me.”

"Okay, but that doesn't make it your responsibility," Marci argues. She's lawyer. They both are. Neither one of them could do their jobs if they didn't believe in the power of legal authority, and she's way too good an attorney to be swayed by this kind of emotional argument.

"I wasn’t anyone’s responsibility after my father died, but people took care of me," Matt says, his voice almost cracking. "Now I'm returning the favor."

Matt looks toward her, and somehow it doesn't matter that he can't see and he's not actually looking _at_ her. The intensity is too much, and Marci has to look away. Her head's spinning. In the past eight hours, she's gotten into a breakup-level fight with Foggy, fought for her life, and argued with a possibly suicidal person over the merits of vigilante justice. Nothing Matt's saying is true. It can't be. It's not how justice or morality works, except...

Except that she respects Matt. She doesn't _like_ him, but that doesn't change the fact that he's right about a lot of things, even when admitting that really annoys her. Plus, Foggy fucking _loves_ him, and the thing about Foggy is that he's nice without being stupid about it. If he likes someone, it's probably because they're worth liking. So yeah, maybe she should be calling 911 and trying to get Matt arrested or committed, but deep down, she still believes in him.

"Fine," she says, turning back to face him at last. "If this is the only way, prove it. Take me with you next time you go out."

Matt opens his mouth to argue, but Marci crosses her arms over her chest and glares. “Don’t you _dare_ tell me how dangerous it is. You and I both know what the real danger is. It’s the law. It’s getting arrested and disbarred because I know what you do. You brought that danger to my doorstep, and now you’re going to convince me it’s worth it.”

**

Marci adds 'having to call out sick' to her list of things she's never forgiving Matt Murdock for. (Right now, it's a mental list, but she's pretty sure it will be spreadsheet-worthy soon.) Technically, she's still the new girl at work, and taking a day off before she's even accumulated sick leave is _so_ not classy. Plus, Marci pretty much _is_ her work, and...

She's going off on a mental tirade to distract herself from her imminent lawbreaking. What the fuck do you even _wear_ for an evening of vigilante justice? And should she take her ID? On the one hand, she'd rather the police -- and the bad guys -- not know who she is. On the other hand, if she dies, how will the police notify her mother that it's time for an exhibitionist display of manufactured grief?

If Foggy were here, he'd say _don't be stupid, your mom loves you._ And she'd say, _excuse me, have you_ met _my mom?_ , and he'd say _you just think she has no feelings because all the botox paralyzed her face._

Except Foggy's not here. He thinks she's selfish and disloyal and untrustworthy, which is pretty much the worst thing Foggy can think about anyone. Add that to Matt's list of debts.

Fine. She'll wear black pants and a black t-shirt -- lawbreaking classic -- but she won't wear anything she likes because she plans to throw them away some place random tomorrow. Preferably someplace that has no security cameras. Or she can just donate them to Goodwill. See? She can do this. She didn't _like_ practicing criminal law, but she'd learned a thing or two from defending clueless idiots who didn't know how to dispose of evidence. 

And then, at midnight, she's going to meet Matt in some dark alley of Hell's Kitchen -- her favorite fucking place -- so he can convince her that his weird crime fighting hobby is worth endangering everyone's career. Or freedom. Or life. It's possible she has those things in the wrong order, but hey, at least she looks really functional next to Matt. Maybe she'll even subtract something from his list of debts for that.

***

Matt manages not to startle Marci too badly when he materializes out of the shadows behind a dumpster -- which is good, because she'd brought the pepper spray, she can only handle one weeping vigilante incident per twenty-four hour cycle.

Her heart is pounding and she feels sick to her stomach as she follows him to an open manhole cover.

"Do everything I tell you," he says. "Without question."

Marci feels like she should argue with that -- Matt's sanity is questionable after all -- but instead she nods. Then she has to say, "I'm nodding."

She follows him down the ladder into the sewer, and _fuck_ , it's dark down here. Not just a little dark. Like absence of all visible light dark. She freezes at the bottom of the ladder, where there's still a faint glimmer from the streetlights above.

"Matt," she hisses. "I can't see."

Matt chuckles faintly, and the sound reverberates around the tunnel.

"Here," he says. "Take my arm. And don't say my name."

Marci thought her heart couldn't be faster than it already was, but hey, today is a day for revelations, right? When she thought about fear, she'd always thought about flunking tests or losing cases, but all of that pales in comparison to shuffling into the blackness with her hand wrapped around Matt's elbow.

She doesn't even know how long they've been walking when Matt whispers, "I'm stopping" a fraction of a second before he halts.

"If you don't want to do this, it's okay. I'll take you back," he says.

"I want to go back more than I've ever wanted anything in my life," she says. Her voice wavers, but she clenches her fingers around Matt's elbow more tightly. "But I'm not going back. I'm going on."

Matt lays his hand over hers. His gloves feel cold and alien against her skin. "I'm going to keep you safe. Do you believe me? I swear I'll keep you safe."

"Okay," Marci says, because what choice does she have?

"We're going again," Matt says, and Marci shuffles along obediently behind him.

"Do you sneak through sewer tunnels a lot?" she asks, just to pass the time.

Matt snorts. "I prefer leaping over rooftops, but I make accommodations for people with different abilities."

"Equal opportunity vigilantism," Marci murmurs. "I'm such a lucky girl."

"We're here," Matt says, coming to a stop. He puts her hand on a metal ladder. "Wait here. I'll check if it's safe and come back for you."

Matt climbs up, and Marci listens to a series of muffled thuds and moans as he fights his way inside. To distract herself, she debates whether entering private property through a sewer is breaking and entering or merely unlawful entry. No one could be reasonably expected to secure their plumbing system from intruders, so probably B&E, but if she got a good lawyer, she could probably plea down to a lesser charge. Excellent.

When Matt summons her, Marci manages to climb up the ladder in the dark all by herself. It's slow, but not too hard so long as she's careful about finding the rungs with her hands before she tries to move her feet. She emerges into a small, dimly lit corridor filled with prone bodies. Her mouth goes dry.

"Are these people dead?" she whispers. None of them are moving, not even a little bit.

"I don't kill people," Matt whispers back, sounding insulted.

Marci wants to be relieved. The thing is, not killing people and not killing people on purpose are not necessarily the same thing.

"Are you _sure_ they're alive?" she asks.

"I can hear their heartbeats," Matt says tersely. Except he's not really Matt anymore. Marci can't say what's different, but he's not the half-goofy, half-charming, occasionally smug law student she'd gotten to know with Foggy. He's someone different and dangerous, and she doesn't argue when he motions her down the corridor.

"What do you see?" Matt asks, and the question catches her off guard. He moved so confidently she'd forgotten that he was actually blind.

"Um, dorms," Marci says, peering into one of the rooms that opened from the hallway. "Well, more like barracks," she amends. The narrow beds are made from rough wooden planks attached to cinder blocks, and they're stacked four deep. They remind her of the concentration camp photos she'd seen on her Jewish birthright tour.

"What is this place?" she whispers.

"A sweatshop, if you're being nice," Matt murmurs. "A slave labor camp if you're not."

He leads them into a stairwell and motions Marci toward the wall. "Guard," he whispers and climbs up into the darkness.

Marci hears a groan and a thud, followed by the sound of Matt dragging a body across the floor. Matt's head appears over the railing a couple floors up, and he beckons her onward. She steps over the guard's motionless form without looking at his face, and adds a new count of failing to render aid to her list of crimes.

The double doors on the landing are chained shut with a thick padlock, which Matt opens with a key he'd taken from the guard. On the other side of the door are rows and rows of sewing machines, stretching further back than Marci can see. None of the operators look up when the doors open; their heads remain bent over their workstations, their fingers feeding endless streams of fabric beneath the needles.

A man comes out of an office next to the door. He's bald, wearing outdated wire-framed glasses and a polyester tie over a short-sleeved dress shirt. It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect for a guy with a dreary middle management job, except it looks like a costume somehow. Underneath the shabby clothes, Marci can see he's actually pretty ripped.

"Are you in charge here?" Matt asks in that low voice that doesn't really sound like his.

The guy really is scared; Marci can see the little droplets of sweat on his forehead. 

"I - I - just manage the assets," he stammers. "You have no problem with me."

"The _assets_?" Marci asks. "These are _people_ , dick hole, and you are guilty of --"

Matt doesn't look back at her, but he makes a chopping motion with his hand that makes Marci shut up before she gives away that she's a lawyer. Matt grabs the guy by the collar, lifts him off the floor, and slams him against the wall. His head hits the cinderblocks with a sickening crack.

"Then I'm going to need you to tell me who I have a problem with," Matt says, still not sounding like himself.

"I can't - I can't --" the guy stammers, and then he headbutts Matt. 

The fight is over fast. The guy has some skills, obviously, but none that match whatever kind of ninja Matt is. Marci had seen fights like this before, in movies and on TV. None of that prepared her for the _sounds_ , the wet crack of a fist against a nose, the dull snap of a bone twisted the wrong way for too long. The guy hits the floor with a hollow thud, and Matt's on top of him, pressing his knee into his stomach.

"I'm going to ask you one more time," he says, and Marci turns away.

No one is even looking up from their sewing machines.

"You're free!" Marci shouts. "You can go!"

Her voice echoes in the cavernous space, reverberating over the endless clatter of the machines. One woman in the front row glances up for a fraction of a second, but her hands never stop moving under the needle.

"It's a test," she says, her voice loud enough to echo.

"A test," the operators around her murmur. The next row repeat it, and the one after that, until finally the whole room is rippling with the word.

Another man glances up. His cheeks are hollow and the shadows under his eyes are as dark as a bruise.

"You will not fool us," he says. "Only work will make us free."

"Work will make us free," the room shouts in unison. 

Marci looks back at Matt, who's bending the manager's fingers back one by one, and suddenly she can't feel revolted by what he's doing anymore. She _should_ \-- she would if the police were doing it -- but now all she can think is that this man deserves to pay, and so does everyone else who brainwashed these people.

Marci hears slow, heavy footsteps on the metal stairs, and she looks up just in time to see a man who looks like he belongs in Game of Thrones, right down to the honest-to-god mace dangling from his left hand. She wants to call out to Matt, but the words die in her throat because she's not supposed to say his name and her heart is pounding so hard she can't even think.

Matt looks up at the guy with the mace and stands up slowly.

"Go ahead, take your best shot," he says, his voice deceptively casual.

The mace swings through the air, whistling as it goes, and Matt doesn't move. It's like Marci's watching in slow motion as the spiked ball whooshes toward Matt's head, and Matt's just standing there, looking completely unconcerned. Then, at the last second, he ducks and grabs the chain, yanking hard and pulling the guy off his feet.

The fight after that is fast and brutal. There are more wet crunches and dull cracks. Matt knocks the guy down but he gets back up again; Matt falls and springs to his feet more times than Marci can count. The clatter of the sewing machines never stops, and the workers never look up from their stations, not even when punches and kicks land a few inches from their faces.

Now Matt has his back against a window. The guy shoves hard, the glass gives way, and as Matt falls backward, his fingers close around the other man's wrist and they fall together toward the street. Marci's breathing is loud in her ears. Had she just seen Matt _die_? No, probably not; she can already hear the sound of a scuffle in the street below. She edges toward the broken window and peeks around the shattered frame. Matt and the man are trading rapid blows in the street. The man has a long shard of glass in his hand, and Matt is holding a splintered piece of wood.

Marci is certain of one thing: if she doesn't stop this fight, someone will die tonight. So she does the one thing that Matt had forbidden her to do under any circumstances: she rushes into the manager's office and calls the police. Then she runs down the stairs two at a time, all the way down to the street.

"Stop!" she yells. "The police are coming!"

The man looks back at her, snarling, and Matt swings at his head with the splintered piece of wood. It connects with a sickening crack, and the man falls to sidewalk, unconscious.

"Come on!" Matt yells, but Marci kneels on the sidewalk and turns the man's head to the side so he won't choke to death if he vomits. Nobody needs a manslaughter charge tonight.

Then she runs off into the darkness with Matt as sirens scream behind them.

They stop when Marci can't run anymore. She falls to her knees in an alleyway, gasping for breath. 

"Are you okay?" Matt asks, sounding like himself again.

Marci manages to shake her head. There's a t-shirt clutched in her fist -- she barely remembers taking it from the shop floor -- and she unfolds it slowly. In the dim glow of the streetlight, she can read the tag. MADE IN AMERICA, it says.

***

The rest of the night is a blur: showering in Matt's apartment, taking the subway home at first light, calling out of work, throwing her clothes into the Goodwill box at the edge of the park. She should try and sleep, but instead she tears apart her closet, looking for MADE IN AMERICA labels that match the one she'd taken from the shop floor.

She finds five of them and spends the next twenty minutes fighting down the urge to vomit. She doesn't even know what she's supposed to do with them. Set them on fire? Build some kind of memorial shrine? In the end, she leaves them in the middle of bedroom floor, takes a sleeping pill, and falls asleep on the couch. When she wakes up, evening light is slanting through the windows and someone is knocking on her door.

Marci opens the door and Foggy’s standing on the other side, holding a bouquet of roses. 

“You should’ve called,” she snaps. She would’ve put on under-eye concealer and her good push-up bra. Now she’s stuck negotiating with her maybe-ex-boyfriend in yoga pants and a gigantic law school t-shirt.

“I considered that,” Foggy says, maddeningly affable. “Then I got to the part where you would’ve hung up the phone, possibly after a terrifying stream of obscenities. So I went the traditional route with the red roses and doorstep apology, and also this nauseating everything bagel with chive cream cheese.” He holds up a brown shopping bag, grinning. “So, what do you say?”

“Nice try,” Marci says. “It would almost be cute, if you hadn’t said… Hm, what was it you said the other night?”

“Let’s not repeat it,” Foggy says quickly. “It was not my finest hour, I admit. It’s possible I was upset that you figured out something about my best friend that I didn’t. I felt stupid, and also like a dick because I assumed Matt couldn’t do those things because he’s blind.”

Marci shakes her head. “You _lied_ to me, Foggy. You made me doubt myself.”

And whatever, Marci can handle lying. Sometimes she even respects it. The self-doubt is the thing she can’t forgive.

“I know,” Foggy says. “I just wanted to protect Matt. I didn’t know if we were at the hiding my best friend’s felonies phase of our relationship.”

Foggy is way too good at looking sincere. Actually, he doesn’t _look_ sincere. He _is_ sincere. That’s why she grudgingly holds open the door to let him inside.

“I hate to ask this, especially since you just let me into your apartment and all, but _are_ we at the phase of our relationship where we hide my best friend’s felonies?” he asks. At least he has the good grace to wince when he says it. At least Marci’s good at rolling her eyes and pretending she doesn’t find that adorable.

“Matt hasn’t called you from jail has he?” she asks, snatching the shopping bag out of Foggy’s hand. She’s willing to hate him marginally less for bringing her favorite breakfast. She hasn't eaten anything for almost a day.

“And would that be because he’s not in jail, or because the federal government has a flexible interpretation of the Constitution where suspected terrorists are concerned?” Foggy asks, following her back to the couch. 

“Relax. I didn’t turn him in,” Marci says. She takes a bite of the bagel, and Foggy looks nauseated. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry. I couldn’t turn him in if I wanted to, at least, not without getting an accessory charge.”

“Accessory? Let’s not be dramatic.” Foggy says. “You’re not aiding, counseling, commanding or encouraging the commission of a crime. I say failure to report, tops.”

Marci takes her time swallowing. She has a feeling Foggy’s not going to like this next part. “I went out with him last night. There was some light B&E, definitely a felony assault, and also some fleeing from an officer of the law. So, you know, probably accessory in the first degree.”

“You went out with Matt?” Foggy makes a small, agonized groan. “I know we’re supposed to be having a relationship discussion right now. That’s important. Believe me, I know it’s important. But please, if there’s even a tiny shred of mercy left in your soul, tell me what that was like.”

“Awful,” Marci says matter-of-factly. “Remember that time some guy grabbed my ass in a bar? And I slapped the shit out of him, but then you had to go and punch him yourself, and you guys rolled around on the floor for awhile till the bouncer threw you out? That was mostly funny.”

Foggy grimaces. “Yeah, it was hilarious. I think I still have some bone fragments floating around in here,” he says, gently running his fingers along his eye socket.

“Yeah, probably. You shouldn’t hit people who are bigger than you, Foggy Bear,” Marci says, shrugging. 

“But watching Matt beat people up is not like watching me take on a drunk Naval Academy reject?” Foggy asks, his face going serious again.

“Nope,” Marci says. She sighs. “I don’t even know where to start with this. I mean, there was a sweatshop, and that was awful. Then there was the manager of the sweatshop? Evil overseer over the sweatshop? And honestly, he probably deserved to get hit, but it’s not like the movies. You can hear bones crunching, and that makes you feel bad, and then you have to wonder what kind of person you are because you feel worse for some evil slavemaster guy than you do for all the people toiling away at sewing machines.” She shrugs. “And then you see that nobody will leave even though they could totally get away, and you start _wanting_ Matt to inflict pain on people, so that's a fresh moral crisis. Then someone with a mace almost kills Matt, and you have to call the cops even though he specifically told you not to.”

“That’s a remarkably dispassionate telling of something that actually sounds really upsetting,” Foggy says.

“Kind of my trademark,” Marci says weakly. “But the sweatshop got busted. The paper said it was a workers’ uprising. So I guess that was good.”

“ _Was_ it good?” Foggy asks.

Marci shakes her head. She’s been asking that question all morning, and so far all she’s gotten is a splitting headache and an inappropriate longing for an eleven a.m. martini. 

Foggy touches her leg gently, and Marci glares. Touching her when she’s pissed is against the rules.

“You looked pretty lost there,” he says. He doesn’t move his hand, and okay, Marci supposes it can stay there.

“I want a drink,” she says. Foggy’s probably up for it, but no, she doesn’t need to go there. “My dad used to say that a lot, actually. He did all kinds of illegal things, and he never got in trouble for any of it. Matt would say that’s because he’s rich, and he’d probably be right .”

Foggy blinks. “Okay, I’m not sure I’m following this conversation, but I’ll take a stab. I don’t think this situation ends with you becoming an alcoholic, and you didn’t choose where you were born. If you’re feeling guilty about that, you can stop.”

Easier said than done, Marci thinks. She’s not sure at what point she’d decided to put her feet in Foggy’s lap, but there they are. He’s tracing a thumb up and down over her ankle, and it feels warm and reassuring, so she’s probably not moving. It makes it easier to say what’s been on her mind since she came home this morning.

“The really disturbing thing is, I think I agree with Matt’s doing,” she says, sliding down on the couch to be closer to Foggy. She wishes she could do this in a courtroom somehow -- challenge Matt to an argumentation duel and let the best man win. But then, that’s what she’d tried to do last night, and she’d ended up following him to the sweatshop of human misery.

“In principle, I know it’s wrong. If we all did what Matt’s doing, society would collapse. We don’t protect criminals’ rights because they deserve it; we protect their rights because if the dregs of society are safe from miscarriages of justice, the rest of us are too. But you didn’t see those people, Foggy. They were suffering. Maybe we should blame the police for not caring more. Maybe we should blame the government for cutting funding to the police. Maybe we should all blame ourselves because we keep voting for politicians who cut government services so we can all shave $12.62 off our tax bill. But while I’m sitting here debating this with myself, people are being stolen and sold and killed on the streets of New York. I can’t put the rule of law above their lives.”

“That’s a really eloquent and well-reasoned justification,” Foggy says, sagging back against the cushions of the couch. “Mine is something like, ‘he’s my best friend.’ Yeah, that’s the whole thing.”

Foggy keeps running his hand up and down her leg, and Marci hears the sharp intake of breath that means he's about to say something important. "Marci?" he asks, "Are we okay?"

" _No_ ," Marci snaps, pulling her feet out of his grasp. "You came here to apologize and all we did was talk about Matt."

***

The good thing about the legal profession is that you've got plenty of work to do if you need to distract yourself from everything that's wrong in your personal life. That's doubly true if you work at an underfunded social justice organization like the ACLU, which Marci does.

Marci's put in three twelve hour days when she finally gives herself permission to listen to surf Pinterest and listen to NPR during her lunch break.

"Mayor Bill De Blasio announced a $100,000 reward today for information leading to the arrest of the vigilante popularly known as Daredevil," the announcer intones. "Here's an excerpt of the news conference."

"Vigilante justice is not acceptable in New York City. It's not acceptable in any civilized community that values the rule of law," the mayor says. "His intentions do not matter. What matters is the long-term consequences if we set the precedent that private citizens can take the law into their own hands."

Marci clicks the radio off and sighs. So much for relaxation. No matter how many times she tries to tell herself that she _is_ fighting for justice, she can't stop thinking about the gaunt faces bent over their sewing machines, chanting that work will make them free. So what if she spends her time fighting for marriage equality and suing the police for brutality? The system's slow, and it doesn't help the people who are suffering right now.

When she comes home, the five MADE IN AMERICA t-shirts are still lying in the middle of her bedroom floor. She was a part of what happened to those people -- an unknowing part, but that didn't make her conscience rest any easier. She flops down on the bed and flicks on the TV. The news is showing more of the Daredevil conference. You'd think the police would be grateful to have so many criminals falling over themselves to confess, but it's the opposite: they're embarrassed that a guy in a suit can solve cases they can't. And Marci's certain that if the whole NYPD wants to catch someone, they'll get caught.

And then what? Marci's mind traces a familiar path: arrest, indictment, disbarment, conviction, jail. Except this time, she's not thinking about Matt, Foggy, or Karen; she's thinking about all the people Daredevil helps when the law fails them. But what's she supposed to about that? It's not like she can thwart a police investigation.

There's an old saying in law: when the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the facts aren't on your side, argue the law. In this case, neither the facts nor the law are on Matt's side, which leaves only one option: winning in the court of public opinion, preferably _before_ the arrest and indictment happens.

Marci always has run an impressive social media campaign.

***

Matt invites her to lunch three days later. She refuses his first option, which is no doubt some weird Hell's Kitchen shit hole, and they settle on a busy noodle bar in Union Square instead. It's loud; they'll be able to talk about whatever they want.

"Have you noticed that #isupportdaredevil is a trending on twitter right now?" Matt asks after the waitress deposits steaming bowls of ramen in front of them.

"I'm kind of the poster girl for how smartphones and social media are ruining human relationships," Marci says. "So yeah, it's safe to say that if it's on twitter, I noticed it."

"I see," Matt says, sliding his hand across the table to find his chopsticks. "But since you don't spend much time in Hell's Kitchen, you probably didn't realize someone's been leaving free Daredevil t-shirts and graffiti stencils around."

"That's actually on twitter too, you know," Marci says. She decides to give up on chopsticks and use the fork to eat her ramen. Matt, meanwhile, is using his chopsticks with infuriating grace and ease.

"If someone were running a social media campaign for Daredevil, they would be taking a substantial legal risk," Matt says.

Marci shrugs. "But it's probably just some random fan, right?"

Matt still looks uncomfortable. "But if it _were_ someone who knew Daredevil's identity, they-they would be careful, I hope."

"Yeah." Marci pokes around in her broth to find a piece of pork. "They would probably buy all the supplies with pre-paid Visa gift cards and make social media posts from public locations on burner phones. At least, that's what I'd tell them to do if I were their lawyer."

"That would limit their exposure significantly," Matt says, nodding. "And this person wouldn't have sent a signed op-ed to the New York Times suggesting that the search for Daredevil is 'shoddy propaganda intended to distract the public from inadequate policing,' right?"

Marci shrugs again. "I don't see how anyone could prove that the op-ed writer is Daredevil's social media consultant. Anyway, this Daredevil guy doesn't have nearly the media savvy to hire such a sophisticated PR team."

"Right," Matt says, nodding tersely. He swallows. "Marci, what you found out about me...I know Foggy didn't take it well. I- I hope that's not why you broke up."

"We didn't break up," Marci says, waving her fork. "Well, not exactly."

They're not together exactly either. Not broken up, not together is their favorite relationship status, as a matter of fact.

"If I caused a problem between you, I'm sorry," Matt says.

Marci sighs. It's not Matt's fault exactly, although it isn't _not_ Matt's fault. It's complicated. Because adulthood sucks, and so do relationships.

"Look, if you want to do me favor, get Karen decent health insurance or a pay raise or paralegal training or something. If you don't do something, somebody's going to poach her, and you and Foggy can't survive without her."

Matt smiles wryly. "You should probably start billing me for your business consulting services."

Marci snorts. "Don't tempt me, Murdock. It won't be long before you owe me your soul."

***

It's almost a week before she talks to Foggy again. Matt keeps taking her out for lunch because of Catholic guilt or something, and Marci keeps saying yes because (a) she likes free things (b) people with enhanced senses pick out _really_ good food. None of that makes it less weird that she's talked to Matt more than her boyfriend, whom she actually likes. Or liked, anyway.

She's sitting on her couch, wondering whether she should start boxing up Foggy's things, when her phone starts making urgent R2D2 noises. Really, she should never have given Foggy her passcode; he'd only used it to set bizarre custom text message notifications and to make Siri address her as Your Worship.

 _We should probably talk,_ the message says.

Nice and ominous, Marci thinks. She should probably start packing that cardboard box.

R2D2 bleeps again. This time it says _I miss you._

Marci hasn't figured out what to say back when there's a knock at her door. Foggy is on the other side -- of course -- with another bouquet of roses and a much larger shopping bag than before.

"I'm trying this again," he says before Marci can say anything. "I'm not actually sure where to start on this, so I'm taking a shot in the dark here. I'm sorry that I accused you of stealing files from us, that I accused you of having some kind of petty vendetta with Matt, that I threatened to call the police, and that I implied you were planning to call the cops on Matt. And most of all, I apologize that I came here to make up with you last week and started a conversation about my best friend instead, and then I left you alone with something that was probably kind of hard to deal with."

Marci waits for him to ask forgiveness, or even just to come inside, but he doesn't. He just stands in the hallway, flowers in one hand and shopping bag in the other. She gets what he's saying: this is her choice. She could slam the door in his face if she wants, and he cares about her enough to risk it.

She steps aside with a sigh, holding the door open wide enough to let him in.

"Can I show you what's in here?" Foggy asks, shaking the bag.

It would be easy to say yes, but Marci shakes her head.

"You know, this is really familiar, Foggy Bear. Someone says things that can't be unsaid, we avoid each other for a week, then we pretend like everything is normal. It's not really a healthy relationship."

Foggy lets out a long breath. "Yeah. You and I _suck_ at communication, but we still keep doing this over and over again. Either we're stubborn idiots who can't move on, or we know we've got something worth fighting for. I'm enough of an optimist to believe in the latter."

The pro/con list in Marci's head is pretty lopsided. On the con side, she and Foggy have at least two major break-ups and uncountable nasty fights in their history, Foggy has a codependent relationship with his best friend, Foggy's mom hates her, and neither she nor Foggy know how to have civilized adult conversations about problems. On paper at least, letting him stay looks a lot like repeating an old mistake. 

And on the pro side? Foggy's here. Asking to be forgiven, and willing to accept it if she refuses. That counts for a lot.

"All right," Marci says, eyeing the bag. "I'm open to persuasion."

Foggy slides the bag onto the counter and gestures for Marci to unpack it. There's ice cream and chocolate -- standard make-up gifts -- plus a couple wedges of exotic-looking cheese that probably pair pretty decently with the bottle of wine. Underneath the cheese, she finds a star fruit, a mystery piece of produce with red spines, and...

"Did you bring me a piece of an alien?" Marci asks, hoisting the last item out of the bag. Its skin feels like orange peel, but it's made of long tentacles that twist off in different directions.

"Actually, that's a hand of Buddha," Foggy says, grinning triumphantly. "It's a citrus fruit."

"What the actual fuck?" Marci's not clear if that's a phrase people say out loud, but it seems appropriate for the occasion.

"Sometimes you're doing the whole calorie counting thing, so I thought I'd bring some healthy treats in case you were going put the ice cream in the freezer and say you can't look at it until Tuesday. And I figured it would make you smile, even if you were still really mad." He smiles at her tentative. "And it worked. I got to see you smile."

"Okay, okay," Marci says, the last her resistance vanishing. "If I say I'm keeping you, do I have to eat this?"

"No," Foggy says quickly. "I'm not honestly sure it's edible."

"Excellent," Marci says, reaching for the corkscrew on the counter. Keeping it in the drawer is really kind of pointless, especially on a week like this, where every day has culminated in a desperate longing for wine.

Foggy pulls the corkscrew out of her hand gently. "Actually, before we get to the drinking and the chocolate and the no doubt _fabulous_ make-up sex, can I ask you a question?"

Foggy's looking at her apprehensively, and Marci sighs. "Go for it," she says.

"At any point, did you consider talking to me about the thing with Matt before you jumped into the whole secret investigation?"

Marci shakes her head. "Would you have even listened?"

"I don't know that I would have, but Marce, I kind of needed you to try."

Marci's not sure when they started hands; it's just a thing that happens naturally when they're standing this close to each other. She twines her fingers more tightly around his and nods.

"That's fair," she says. "I'm sorry."

"Forgiven," Foggy says, and Marci knows he means it. For her, anger takes days and weeks to simmer away, but Foggy lets go in a second. She used to think it meant he was stupid. Now she thinks it's remarkable.

"Excellent." Marci lets out a long breath and reaches for the corkscrew again. "Now for the alcohol and make-up sex."

Foggy shakes his head. "In a minute, I swear." 

Marci makes a small noise of frustration. Adult relationship conversations are good, but can't they be grown-ups _with_ wine?

"I need to say this, okay?" Foggy says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Of all the things that happened last week, I'm most sorry that the first time I said I love you was in the middle of a fight. I can't change it, and I don't expect you to say it back, but I want you to know it's true. I love you, Marci."

Foggy's eyes are wide and impossibly open and hopeful. They'd started holding hands again, and Marci couldn't say who had reached for whom. She sees herself turning away from him, saying that she needs more time, and opening the bottle of wine. They'd eat the chocolate and watch a movie, and he'd go down on her just the way she likes. Then, a few weeks later, after he'd really proven himself, she'd finally say she loves him too. And Foggy would be okay with that, because he always lets her be who she needs to be.

But maybe she doesn't want to be the kind of person who holds onto hurt and nurses old wounds anymore. She reaches out to trail her fingertips along his cheek, and he presses her hand against his face.

"I love you too," she says.


End file.
